A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting a care home for the elderly to have an afternoon of "Memories" with them based on old fashioned remedies for everyday ailments. Starting with a dock leaf that was passed around we remembered how we used it for rubbing on a nettle stings, and then I produced a whole range of everyday things out of my kitchen cupboard or leaves I had picked in hedgerows and my garden to remember how in days gone by home grown remedies were always the first things used to make you feel better. I just grew up with this sort of knowledge and knew what sort of plants were used for different things. About half of the residents in the care home had this knowledge as well, and about half did not. But most curious of all was the number of staff who gathered around the door quite incredulous at some of the things I suggested. But I still use some of them, and really like herbal teas. So what herbal and folk remedies can you recall and do you still use them ? I had a long walk home from school through country lanes and over fields, over two miles, and was often accused of "dawdling", but in actual fact I was botanising, looking in great detail at the plants, flowers, trees, hedges, that I passed, and I knew exactly where I would find any particular plant in the whole parish. Coltsfoot in early February was the first real flower of the year, and grew at Jack Dunn's Lane End, right through to the late flowers of ivy. Harebells, eyebright, cuckoo flowers, milk maids - they all had lovely names. When I got home I would get the Observer's Book of Wild Flowers out of the bookcase and identify my discoveries. I have long wondered what happened to this book, I loved it so much. To my delight I found a second hand copy on a stall selling odd bits of this and that (I won't call it junk) on York market last week. Oh joy, it was mine for £3.25p ! and an Observer's Book of Birds as well. My brother had the Observer's book of Birds and Bird's Eggs. Yes, it was so long ago that little boys went Bird Nesting (now illegal thank goodness) and he carefully blew the eggs and put them in tissue paper in a shoe box. I was no good at spotting birds, and am still no good, my eyes need to be close to something to identify it. Flowers and trees don't move, so I got to know them very well indeed. Some of the illustrations are in black and white and others in colour. They are really very beautiful but best of all is the description of the plants. What a joy to a small child to read the description of Ragwort with the words lyrate, pinnate, corymb, involucre. I love words, and read the descriptions to see if they matched my specimens. I hasten to say that we did NOT have ragwort on our farm. Father said it was a shameful thing to have ragwort. It was uprooted immediately it appeared. The other aspect of collecting wild flowers and plants is their names. Speedwell, Toothwort, Nipplewort, Hare's foot trefoil, Herb Robert, Butterbur, Coltsfoot, Jack By The Hedge, such lovely names. Bristly Ox Tongue - how did they get these names ? Of course there were local or dialect names for flowers as well, my father called knapweed " 'oss nobs", because the flower heads were like a horse's head I suppose. Lots of wild plants included wort as part of their name, stitchwort, St John's wort, lousewort, and such plants have ancient medicinal uses. I discovered this strange looking plant early in the spring in some woods, and now, with my Observer's book of wild flowers, have identified it as Toothwort, lathrae squamaria, a very strange plant indeed. The leaves around it are wild garlic, it is leafless, but needs hazel bushes in order to grow. A symbiotic relationship between plants. Whether it was used for toothache I do not know but I can now see why it got its name as the flowers look like teeth. This is a very useful book and it has survived from the bookcase in the farmhouse kitchen. It does tell you all about the medicinal uses of different plants, and therefore it was quite natural to make some sage tea and gargle with it when you had a sore throat, or use feverfew for headaches. One little bit of wisdom that I stored up and used when it was necessary was Raspberry Leaf Tea. Swore by it on both occasions when it was needed (in childbirth) . I use comfrey to take out bruises, works a treat. Father used to point out that animals also instinctively knew which plants would make them better when they were not well. If a cow had been ill and was kept inside for a few days, or if she had just calved, once turned back out into the fields she would go round the hedge-backs eating leaves of plants, not grass, because she knew what would make her well again. This is another gem from the bookcase in the farmhouse. My mother treasured this book, and it also gave descriptions of plants and their medicinal uses. It has instructions on how to distill them, dry them, make pills and potions, syrups, oils and preserves, because, of course, plants are not growing all the year round. How did my mother come by this book ? I have no idea but the frontispiece has the name of Aaron Arrowsmith and the date June 1847. There was a famous Aaron Arrowsmith, a cartographer, who lived from 1750 to 1823 and was born at Winston on the River Tees. He went to London and became very famous and very rich, but it did not belong to him. Curiously when we visit my husband's father's family graves at Stanwick Saint John we pass by the gravestone of another Aaron Arrowsmith who must have lived in a nearby village. My mother was billeted in villages all around the area, at one time she was in Winston and Caldwell, during the Second World War, when she was a landgirl working on local farms. Did some kind person give her the Culpepper's herbal with this inscription of Aaron Arrowsmith ? Thinking about the knowledge of plants reminded me of a little bit in Elizabeth Gaskell's "Mary Barton", the novel of Manchester life, which is quite brutal in the descriptions of poverty and death always knocking on the door. It shocked at the time and it shocks now. But Will Wilson remembered with fondness his Aunt Alice Dear old Aunt ... she's sadly failed since I was last ashore... when I lived with her, a little wee chap, I used to be awakened by the neighbours knocking her up; this one ill, or that body's child restless; and for as tired as she might be , she would be up and dressed in a twinkling, never thinking of the hard day's wash afore her next morning. How happy I used to be when she would take me into the fields with her to gather herbs ! A wise woman who was called on in times of sickness who gathered herbs. Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream I know a bank where the wild thyme grows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight. And yes I do know a bank where the wild thyme grows. And I will keep drinking herbal tea, nettle is a favourite at the moment, and I also like liquorice, and chamomile and peppermint and have started taking turmeric in drinks. My last reflection is on other childhood books. Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit was fond of making things out of flowers and hedgerow plants, I remember she had some remedy made of coltsfoot and made cowslip wine. We made a cough remedy out of elderberries. It was delicious, flavoured with cloves. I had the job of picking the elderberries and then using a fork to take the berries off the stalks. My mother then boiled them up into a syrup and bottled it for winter chesty coughs. Alison Uttley traded on her country upbringing for the rest of her life and wrote extensively, not just books for children but collections of essays on country lore and a book of recipes (which I have and love). Beatrix Potter's naughty rabbit Peter, having lost his clothes and got soaked by hiding in a watering can, was put to bed with camomile tea. I think I would have given him a dose of something a bit stronger ! And here are some Rosehips, the fruit of the wild rose. Does anyone else remember rosehip syrup ? It was lovely and supposed to be rich in Vitamin C. Our village school used to collect rosehips. In the autumn we children used to pick hips from the hedgerows and take them to school and get something like an old one penny per pound and when you had picked ten pounds you got a badge. I can also remember that the cook in the school canteen used to put rosehip syrup on milk puddings such as semolina or sago or rice pudding. Oh those were the days ! But I have never found anyone else who collected rosehips and took them to school. What happened to rosehip syrup ? Someone must know. Not liking to see anything go to waste I have been making jam with windfall apples that somehow fall at my side of the fence from my neighbour's tree. As they are bruised they have to be used quickly, but are delicious either as eaters or cookers. Such a shame they all fall on the floor at the other side of the fence. I do give my neighbours some jam. And we all know the medicinal uses of cranberries !
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